The Monroe Club was, I am told, the last true dive bar in Huntington Beach, CA. The last owner was running hookers out of it....rumor has it, of course...not a week before I got it. I have known about the bar for the last four years and stopped by weekly to talk to the property owner to check status. In June, the owner mentioned that the lease holder was in arrears thirty days on rent going on sixty. From that day forward I carried six grand in my back pocket and stopped in to the property owners office every morning at opening time. Eviction was begun and the Sheriff was expected to post the eviction at any moment. I could then sign a new lease and get the place. Up until the moment the Sheriff tacks the notice up, the lease holder has the right to pay his back rent and continue his lease.The owner had it on the market for 125k and couldn't come to agreement on price. He then turned his electricity off which constitutes abandonment. He did that on a Tuesday night, I was there on Wednesday morning at 8:30 signing the new lease and twenty minutes later the old lease holder is arguing with my locksmith in front of the bar while holding a check for 11k to pay the back rent and penalties. Too late. Gotcha on a technicality. The new bar is called The Hook Up.
When building a bar, you want to cut costs wherever you can. I have taken to scavenging behind local warehouses for wood. Here we have Mason post load up of the 1" ply, 3/4" ply, built radius corners and moulding I got from behind an abandoned warehouse off of the 405 and Goldenwest. That wood ain't cheap. Mason says it's worth at least 400 bucks if I were to buy it from Lowes. This should build the bar back, bar top and armrest plus the raised dj booth. The last photo shows the giant beams stacked near the pile we pilfered from. Holy crap those were big trees!
